Sections

Michel Coulombe appointed to head CSIS as government remakes upper ranks of public service

Michel Coulombe has been appointed director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, five months after he was tapped to serve as interim director to replace Richard Fadden.Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The Harper government shook up the top ranks of Canada’s primary spy agency and its Foreign Affairs Department Friday, the latest in a string of changes to senior leadership throughout the federal civil service.

Long-time spy Michel Coulombe formally takes over as director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, five months after he was tapped to serve as interim director to replace the outgoing Richard Fadden.

Fadden famously made headlines in June 2010 when he said in an interview that foreign countries were actively engaged in industrial and political spying in Canada, and that they held sway over several unnamed Canadian politicians.

He is now the most senior civilian leader at National Defence.

Coulombe, who has been with CSIS since 1986, told a parliamentary committee in March that radicalization, or homegrown terrorism, was the spy agency’s “No. 1 priority.”

“Terrorism is not something that happens only in other countries,” he said during another committee meeting in May. “There are people in groups here and now who seek to commit acts of violence in Canada and who, given the chance, would kill innocent Canadians and destroy civilian infrastructure.”

CSIS is separate from the Communications Security Establishment Agency, the federal government’s super-secret electronic espionage agency, which has been at the centre of controversy over allegations of spying in Brazil and other activities.

Meanwhile, the government appointed former diplomat Daniel Jean to take over as the top bureaucrat at Foreign Affairs.

Jean has spent the better part of the past decade moving up through the ranks at various departments, and most recently served as the top official at Canadian Heritage.

Before that, he served as a Canadian diplomat in Washington, Haiti and Hong Kong.

Foreign Affairs, like all federal departments, is currently working to rein in spending as part of the Harper government’s efforts to slash the deficit.

This has included selling Canadian diplomatic property abroad and cutting back on diplomats’ resources when working overseas.

Professional diplomats also only recently ended a five-month job action that often flared into acrimony and included a ruling of bad-faith bargaining against the Harper government by the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

The government also announced that former National Defence deputy minister Robert Fonberg is retiring after 33 years in government.

One of the most powerful and controversial bureaucrats in Ottawa, Fonberg quietly — and not so quietly — influenced everything from the war in Afghanistan to the military’s multibillion-dollar procurement system. He was appointed in 2007.

Regarded as extremely arrogant by some, tough by others, Fonberg famously butted heads with opposition MPs last year after Auditor General Michael Ferguson blasted National Defence’s handling of the $45-billion F-35 stealth fighter jets project.

Many had expected Fonberg to be replaced then, but instead he has spent the past year implementing billions of dollars in Defence Department spending cuts — much of which is being done behind closed doors with little explanation or outside input.

He was appointed to a six-month stint, which has now ended, as special adviser to the clerk of the Privy Council, the federal government’s top bureaucrat.

Former Canadian International Development Agency president Margaret Biggs, who oversaw the dismantling of Canada’s foreign aid agency earlier this year, is also on the move and will take up a fellowship at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.